JGR, tnx for great patch pack! I played it for 100's of hours with friends on a multiplayer server (3 week games), often the most busy (but private) one in the list running on JGR.
WARNING: Do NOT use template based replacement yet in multiplayer games!! It contains a bug that corrupts your game and save file in multiplayer games, making it impossible to reload save games (only) on a multiplayer server , i.e. on a crash.
Path to reproduce: In a multiplayer game, create a template, replace a train with the template, save the game, try to load the game (on a multiplayer server). Crash: "Assertion failed at line 314 of /home/jgr/openttd/cross-win64/src/company_cmd.cpp: owner < OWNER_END". Crash can sometimes also be triggered by sending a replaced train to the depot.
What seems to be happening is that the template replacement somehow messes up something related to vehicle ownership information. Even when removing all trains that were "template replaced" (and the templates) and saving the save game was still corrupt (not loadable in multiplayer).
Just some thoughts what i'm missing in OpenTTD in general at the moment:
- Working template based replacement!
- 32 bit trainsets. We should set up a fund
- Copy & paste of stations/rails.
- Difficulty balancing & simple Easy/Med/Hard/Very hard setting. I had to spend over 40 hours to create balanced and challenging cost/revenue settings because the default game is way way too easy but way way too hard to increase difficulty (track/station cost settings, daylenght/cargo generation settings, train costs settings per trainset, etc).
- What would be a great first step is a patch that overrides the train & bus running costs based on their Speed, power & capacity (and the difficulty setting). If i currently combine two or three of the popular train and bus sets their always out of balance, causing everybody to use only the cheapest trainset. You can often configure the running costs, but this A) requires too much tuning time B) is often not a solution because i.e. the wagons are too cheap but the engines too expensive.